George Chandler

I think I should mention George Chandler (1898 - 1985) here, in my blog of Bit Actors.  I have a problem calling him a Bit Actor, though.  He has 444 titles listed on IMDb, so he must have been a star.  No matter.

Everyone who is a baby boomer remembers him as Uncle Petrie in the television series, "Lassie" from the 1950s.  He was much more than that.

Chandler started performing in vaudeville, and then in 1928 moved to silent films.  It is rather odd that there isn't much written about him on IMDb or Wikipedia.  TCM has a short biography.  He appears in The Virginian (1929) starring Gary Cooper, but most of his films before that were shorts. 

In 1933 he plays W. C. Fields' son in The Fatal Glass of Beer.  Fields was only five years older than Chandler.  There are six films with Chandler and Dick Powell, starting with Blessed Event (1932) and Footlight Parade the next year. 

Chandler made an interesting movie in 1936 called The Country Doctor.  He wasn't the doctor, he played a character called Greasy.  It was a story about a small town doctor who delivers quintuplets, and they filmed the Dionne Quintuplets (b. 1934) for the part.  As a child, my family had 16mm home movies that my grandfather filmed, and somehow we came across some old Pathe newsreels in our collection.  A news item about the Quints was in one of them.  I wish I still had those films!

The list of stars Chandler worked with must be incredible.  Ten films with Spencer Tracy, five with Jimmy Stewart, six with Henry Fonda, six with Una Merkel and also with Claire Trevor, and he made 23 films with his friend, director William Wellman (1896 - 1975).  The list is much longer, but I can't search through all of his work!

1939 was a good year to look at.

   Blondie Meets the Boss

   Calling Dr. Kildare

   Young Mr. Lincoln

   Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation
   Beau Geste
   Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

He worked with Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto, but most of his parts were very small.  He was the photographer or the sleazy reporter.  He was the next door neighbor, the elevator operator or the bartender.  His soft voice played well as a friendly character, but he had a look that could be turned on to make you think he was up to something. 

By the 1950s he was also working in TV teleplays and series'.  In 1954 he was in The High and the Mighty with John Wayne, one of five films with The Duke.

In addition to "Lassie," Chandler was a regular on "Waterfront" and "The Adventures of Kit Carson."  In the 1960s he had his own series called "Ichabod and Me" that only lasted one season.  In the 1970s we see him in "Alias Smith and Jones" once again in bit parts.  In 1978 he appears as a DMV clerk in Every Which Way but Loose starring Clint Eastwood.

George Chandler's final film he plays an elderly man in The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979).  Fitting as he was 81 years old.  Us baby boomers will miss you, Unlce Petrie!  You are a star in every Bit Part you had.

Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)

I don't think Henry Fonda could ever have been classified a bit actor.  In his first film, The Farmer Takes a Wife (1935), he gets second billing to Janet Gaynor.  In 1939 he was just 34 years old and played Abraham Lincoln in Young Mr. Lincoln, a fictionalized account of the president's early life. 

Let's look for other famous names in the cast.  Milburn Stone played Stephen Douglas long before he became the doctor in "Gunsmoke."  He was 35 years old while working on Lincoln, and this was almost his fiftieth role in movies.

Edwin Maxwell, who was Freedonia's Secretary of War in the Marx Brother's Duck Soup (1933), was in his 74th film here.  In 1929 he started acting in film, and in ten years appeared in 110 films.

Jack Kelly was 12 years old playing a boy here.  Of course he would become Bart Maverick much later on TV.  Dickie Jones was the same age as Kelly, and his most famous roles were as a child actor.  (Here we go again...back to Destry Rides Again!)

George Chandler had an uncredited part in this, his 165th film.  I fondly remember him as Uncle Petrie in "Lassie" on TV.  He has 444 roles listed on IMDb, and is remembered mostly for all the TV he did.  I should blog about him in the future.

Let's not forget Ward Bond (again) and Donald Meek, who had a long career as a character actor in comedies with Mae West and W. C. Fields, Laurel and Hardy, Penny Singleton, William Powell and others, plus his wonderful role in Stagecoach as Peacock the whiskey salesman, and parts in so many other films.  It's a shame we lost him in 1946 at age 68.  Another future blog topic.